Multitasking Graphic Operating System for Atari 8-bit Demo Available

Jonathan “flashjazzcat” Halliday offers a working demo of the new multitasking graphic OS (Graphical Operating System, GOS) being developed for the Atari 8-bit computers.

The zip file contains ROM and ATR files that can be used with several programmable cartridges. There is also separated versions that uses Amiga and Atari ST mice.

Halliday is currently working to improve the system performance to display text and other improvements.

While it is expected that in the future GOS runs on XL/XE computers with 64KB the current status shows that a realistic configuration needs 128K RAM, a flash cartridge and a mouse compatible with Atari ST or Amiga.

Based on the video below, GOS looks really impressive, with a nice and crispy black and white interface showing good performance. Remember that it is a multitask operating system, an amazing feat for the good old Atari!

1 Response

Main page is http://atari8.co.uk/gui/ . Very impressive! Is it really pointless to try something like this on a 6502 in 2015? I am attracted to the related philosophy in the articles of a very sharp, experienced professional programmer, Samuel Falvo, “Software Survivalism” at http://sam-falvo.github.io/2013/10/06/software-survivalism/ and “Neo-Retro Computing” at http://sam-falvo.github.io/2013/10/06/neo-retro/ . And although I have not had any exposure to 6502 Atari computers, I am fascinated by the discipline and care and inventive techniques used to pull this off in a system with such limited memory and execution speed. It’s definitely a good practice, and forces one to be more efficient with the resources. It’s a valuable skill to transfer to any system, including modern ones where bloatware and programming sloppiness are unfortunately the norm. As I wrote this, our son’s smart phone crashed, and took several minutes to re-boot. Why did it crash? Bugs. Why did it take so long to re-boot? Bloat. My hat is off to Jonathan Halliday, and also to Paul Fisher, Jörn Mika, and others I might have missed who contributed to his Atari multitasking GUI OS!